Real
by fairy tale echo
Summary: This can't be happening. This can't be real.


Her eyes never close. That isn't surprising but is still pretty creepy. It's not like robots with fried circuits can close their own eyes.

I go down there, sometimes, just to look at her. Willow thinks she's got her hidden down there, in the basement of the Magic Box, and that no one knows that she's still occasionally tinkering with her, but I know. Willow is fascinated with the robot, and I can't blame her, she's a fascinating creation. The robot fooled them, Willow and Xander, she was so much like Buffy. I guess she must have fooled Spike too, but I guess that's different, because he wanted so badly to believe.

I touched her skin once, and it felt just like real skin, human skin. She looks real. She feels real. Her eyes that never close stare back into my eyes and I can almost, for a split second, see Buffy in them. But it's not human skin. And she isn't real.

Just like me.

Tara was quiet and funny. She told me jokes I didn't understand and helped me with my homework. Sometimes, when she stuttered and tucked her hair behind her ear, I could see how uncool she thought she was. I loved it when she did that, because somehow, it gave me hope. And now Tara can't remember her own name or tell jokes ever again, because Glory hurt her. Because of me. This is all because of me.

Buffy ran out of that cave so fast I barely saw her go. She spit out, "I'll be back! Stay put!" and then sprinted out at Slayer-speed, off to find Willow before she hurt herself.

"Can't believe that didn't occur to your sis," Spike shrugged and sat down next to me.

I think of wide-open-staring-robot eyes. "Sometimes she has a hard time," I say slowly "seeing other people's points."

Something that could be considered a chuckle escapes from Spike's chest. "That she does. That she does, indeed."

"I'm sorry about Tara, I'm sorry about your face, I'm sorry we're stuck in this," I blurt it all out at once.

"Rubbish. There's nothing to be sorry about. Glory did that. All that. Not you."

"If it wasn't for me," I turn away from Spike's eyes and lower my chin to my chest.

"If it wasn't for you, your sis would be all alone in the world, no family. That's all that matters."

And then it's the strangest thing, I can feel Spike's hand in my hair. He's trying to comfort me, I think, that's the only explanation for the awkward way he's patting my head and running his hand through the back of my hair. It's cute and sad all at the same time. And it reminds me of Buffy and the way she thinks that if she just keeps tucking my hair behind my ears I'll understand everything and be soothed.

My brilliant Slayer sister couldn't even see how Spike had a crush on her. Spike has been alive for over a hundred years and he can barely think of a way to comfort me. Sometimes I wonder if everyone around me has the emotional capacity of a small child. Where does that leave me?

I never stop Buffy from tucking the hair behind my ears. I always smile back at her. So I don't stop Spike's shaky patting of my hair, it is strangely comforting. Somehow, at this moment, when all I can think of is, _"On top of everything else, now you've got Willow AND Buffy chasing after Glory." _

"Yeah. Family," I reply, but the word, like everything else lately, doesn't feel real.

After an hour, Buffy still hasn't returned. I think I should be scared about it, but I feel numb. Spike has stopped patting my hair and we've settled into a comfortable silence. If she'd let us stay in Spike's crypt instead of hurrying us down to these nasty caves I'd be able to take a blanket and sleep in his chair. Instead, I'm sitting on a rock shivering a little and wishing for his cheap TV set. And I really have to pee.

After rocking back and forth for a few more minutes, I know I can't hold it any longer. I guess I am just gonna have to make the best of this. Buffy is so buying me a new pair of shoes to make up for this indignity.

I stand up and try to look composed as I say in Spike's general direction, "Please excuse me for a moment, there is something I have to take care of."

I just know he is smirking as I slink off several feet away and look for a good place to hide. I turn the corner around a huge slab of rock and find a small corner I decide is dark and hidden enough. I'm just about to actually lower myself to unbuttoning my jeans and relieving myself when Buffy's voice cuts through the air.

"Where's Dawn?"

"Dunno, lost track of her," Spike says evenly.

"Not funny Spike, where is she?" Her voice went up another octave and I could hear the strain in it.

I retraced a couple of my steps and peaked around the corner of my rock. Buffy has her hands folded tightly in front of her chest, her favorite confrontational pose, and she seems to be in one piece, no broken nose or bones sticking out. A strange wave of relief I wasn't expecting rushes over me. She's OK. Willow must be OK then too. The smallest weight lifts off my chest.

"She had some business to take care of. We've been down here a few hours now, you know. She'll be right back." He waved his head towards where I'd headed off.

"Fine, whatever," Buffy looked away and I noticed for the first time how tight her face was looking. When had that happened? How had my sister started turning into an old woman right in front of my eyes?

I should just come out now, run out from behind this rock and tell Buffy to get me the heck out of this cave, get home where I could pee in a real bathroom, tell Spike thanks and good-bye and leave. Find out about Willow. Find out about Tara. Hear the latest pain and suffering Glory had inflicted on someone in her hunt for me.

Hiding behind the rock suddenly sounded like a great option.

"You can't keep this up, you know," Spike sounded so rational.

Buffy heaved a sigh and I knew she was rolling her eyes. "Excuse me but what?"

"Hiding the Bit away like this, it's not right."

"Really? What do you suggest, maybe dropping her off at Glory's penthouse? Put a bow on her head and say, 'Hey, here's the Key!' and then leave? Is that the nosy-vampire solution?" Buffy had uncrossed her arms and now threw them above her head.

And I knew, watching them from behind this rock, hiding from the reality of the moment, of what had happened to Tara, that Buffy was only being sarcastic and just arguing with Spike. I knew she'd never, not in a million years, even if it meant the end of the world, right, she'd never let Glory have me. She just wouldn't. But even hearing her joke about it made the blood run cold in my veins. _"Summers blood,"_ I reminded myself. _"We're sisters."_

"S'not what I meant and you know it. You can't do this. It's not fair to her. She was worried sick about the pretty little witch and she felt like,"

"I couldn't risk taking her to the hospital. What if Glory had followed Tara there, what if she was just waiting to see who showed up, what if,"

"What if is gonna get you no where, Slayer. Thought you'd have figured out by now the harder you try to keep things from the Bit, the harder she's gonna push back? Remember the episode on your birthday?"

i Ouch. /i I close my eyes for a minute. That was going to cost him. Spike must really feel like provoking Buffy tonight. I was glad I was hiding behind a solid piece of rock.

I knew the face Buffy was making without looking: she'd narrow her eyes into tiny slits and her mouth would turn down at the edges. It was the look only Buffy could manage, when she found her sweaters in my room or when I had been in the bathroom for half an hour.

"She can push back all she, you know, this is, I am just trying to," She stepped away from Spike, and I think it was only then that I noticed how close they'd been standing together. Buffy sounded flustered. Flustered? Buffy? In the same sentence?

Wait, did Spike have my sister on the ropes? Could this be? No, she was re-crossing her arms; all was right with the world again.

"This is none of your god-damn business, actually, so don't you start chiming in on how I should be taking care of my sister. Just what I need, another person telling me what a horrible job I'm doing at taking care of, you know, none of this is any of your concern anyway, so shut the hell up about things you don't,"

A sick feeling rose in the pit of my stomach. I thought of Buffy fighting with Willow over my math homework, her shameful face in the principal's office. I'd done that too.

Spike cut her off. "I'm not saying you're doing a bad job, Slayer, all things considered, you're doing excellent. You know I don't tell you what to do. I'm just trying to tell you, Tara is her friend too. Dawn deserved the right to be there."

"No, Spike, no. Dawn deserves more than hospitals and seeing the people she loves in them changed and broken and," Buffy gasped a little and put her hand over her mouth.

I wonder if at the exact same moment the exact same thought had run through us, shocking our hearts a little_. "Mom." _

Buffy took another uneven step away from Spike. Her voice was almost hysterical. "Tara doesn't even, she's just like the rest of them, Spike, she doesn't even know Willow or, or, anything, and Glory broke six bones in her hands, when Willow found her she was covered in blood and rambling about pies and clouds. Do you, can't you, Dawn deserves better than seeing that, having to be there for that and, Tara deserves, oh God," Buffy is rambling now, stumbling away from Spike.

Tears are pricking the back of my eyes and I hear Tara's slow, gentle voice and feel as plastic as the robot.

This is real. But, God, it shouldn't be.

I step out from behind the rock. I want to go home. I want to see Willow. I want to be back on the floor of the Magic Box, lying in a triangle and giggling with Xander. I want Buffy's face to stop looking so old and stretched.

Before I can take a step forward, Spike does.

He's crossing the short distance that lies between him and Buffy. He looks, good God, he looks as if he's about to touch her. "_Don't do it!"_ I want to scream. _"She'll never understand, she'll never accept, she doesn't know about your weird hair patting."_

"**Don't TOUCH Buffy!"** It's been the unwritten, unspoken law since almost before Mom got sick. The few times we've hugged and touched since then have all felt sharp and raw.. My sister is turning in on herself, pulling away from everything I remember about her. I have the craziest of thoughts: _"She won't be real anymore. Soon she'll be nothing more than eyes that never close."_

But Spike is walking towards her as if to touch her. He must know the law, he must, but… I guess it doesn't apply any more.

"I'm sorry about Tara, Buffy."

It sounds like something one human being would say to another human being. It sounds so strange. It sounds so necessary.

And then, right in front of my eyes, Spike has his hands on Buffy's upper arms, and I know he's looking right at her and for once, she's looking back and unblinking seems to fit.

"Tara was a good woman. But it wasn't your fault," His voice is as smooth as silk and he's running his hand up and down Buffy's arms.

And then my Slayer of a sister takes a deep, shuddering sigh that even I can hear as clearly as if she's standing right next to me, closes her eyes and leans into Spike's touch. For what can only be a second, she rests her head on his chest and sighs again. Spike lets go of her arms and wraps my sister into a hug. She doesn't stake him and he somehow doesn't seem awkward at all. I watch Buffy's shoulders slump into his embrace and for what feels like the first time in forever, I can actually see my sister let her defenses down.

I can't possibly be seeing this. It can't possibly be happening.

But I am. And it is.

And it's just right.

It's real.


End file.
